Poland - travelling through food

Anna (51, accountant) and Stanisław (51, CEO)

There is a traditional Polish saying that goes "through stomach to the heart" with no meaning no other than the one in English. I have heard it multiple times while interviewing this middle-age couple in their suburbian house, in Konstancin near Warsaw.

SIMPLICITY THROUGH MODESTY

They both love to cook and their economic status allows them to do that quite often, even up to four or five times a week. They invite close friends, neighbours and some family over for dinner. A big isle kitchen with additional maid help makes their cooking quite exquisite but they "try not to show off to much in order not to embarrass their guests too much". This attitude leads to traditional Polish and Mediterranean cuisine with original additives from the hosts.

HOME COOKING AS PART OF QUALITY LIFE

Anna and Robert immersed into cooking after their turbulent but succesful careers. They first sold one company and started a new on focusing on accounting in times of prosperity acceleration, gaining multiple clients in short time. Robert still works as a CEO of in a Polish branch o pharmaceutical company.

Leaving daily work, they tried to calm concentrating everyday pleasures. They travelled, rebuild their house and cooking became a natural consequence of their eating passion realized throughout the globe. They began bringing back flavourings and condiments from their journeys and cooking exotic dishes at home for their friends as a part of the after-journey storytelling meetings.

They soon realized that travelling "was possible by simply preparing local food with local music playing in the back... and respecting local, even if very exotic, table savoir-vivre customs". This led them to health and quality food retailers in Poland that include ALMA and PIOTR I PAWEL supermarkets present i Polish big cities, local exotic food stores like KUCHNIE ŚWIATA and small local stores with "good food".

We cooked chicken in a thai way:

SHOPPING AND BUTTER

This couple does not shop too often - they usually have somebody doing their shopping for them or event order groceries online. They have a template list in one of the online stores based on the ALMA brand and butter is present there. The brand they chose is MASŁO FIŃSKIE (FINNISH BUTTER) whose design and small-scale communication benefits position it very close to Lurpak. Having a list online, they have their favourite brands already chosen.

They usually buy five packs of butter per week and almost never have to buy butter locally in case of an immediate need, as they also usually have a couple of packs deep frozen. Having no kids, they can allow themselves to concentrate on strong and often unacceptable in Poland tastes while chosing their products either online or in real.

SUMMARY AND FINDINGS

Wealthy food lovers often concentrate on the exotic dimension of the food they prepare and treat cooking exotic dishes as either a way of travelling or a way and/or pretext to tell stories about their travels.